Another Halloween. . .

. . .has come and gone.

I try to love Halloween, really I do, but it's hard. As in "I'm tryin' Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard." (Name that movie!)

I like the idea of dressing up and I like helping my kids assemble costumes. But I'm a dreadful procrastinator, and I'm usually stressed out about some key element of a costume right down to the last minute. I hate that.

This year, the pirate was easy and fun and ready ahead of time. Ditto for Cleopatra. The monkey, thanks to my extended village, turned out to be extremely easy, if a little down to the wire. The Grim Reaper -- easy...but I couldn't let go of the nagging voice in my head that kept saying: "Really? That's what you want to be? You can't think of something more fun? And less...deathly?"

I know, I know, 9-year old boys like that stuff. I'm not a 9-year old boy, though. I think I was sufficiently supportive of his choice that he did not suffer any ill effects from a disapproving mother, so no worries there. He did add his own creative flare; when the mask we found for him ended up featuring blue horns, he changed the name of his costume to The Blue Horned Reaper. Cool.

But Michael Jackson had me in knots right up to the last minute. Most of the costume was easy to find, in our own closets or at the local thrift store. But everyone was out of the white sequined glove in kids' sizes, and the adult size was huge. I tried a last minute home-made solution, which was utterly pathetic.

So then, with the school parade starting at 12:30, I found myself at the Party Store at 11:45, fighting the urge to kiss the employee when she came up with one huge MJ glove. From there, it was dash to school, hand off the glove, fit it to the kid's hand with a rubber band and a couple of safety pins, collapse in relief that everything worked out. All good. Mother nearly dead.

The other reason I hate Halloween is that my kids go bananas. That's a lot of bananas. Everything about Halloween is just a little too hyped up and intense for me. I'm a simple girl, I like simple things, and the rigamarole of these Uber-Events gets me down.

All that said, we actually had a great time trick-or-treating with friends, and they made the evening really fun for me and for my kids. I didn't even need a flask!

Here they are from youngest to oldest:


The Little Monkey

Cleopatra

The Pirate Anne Bonny

The Blue Horned Reaper

(A photo resistant) Michael Jackson


Close the history books on this one. Bring on the Holidays.

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